English Dub Review: Case File N221: Kabukicho “Kobayashi the Man, Giving It His All”;”Wife Looks Into the Future”

 

OVERVIEW

Sugimoto, Kobayashi’s former superior in the yakuza, has returned to make his own name in the crime game. But when Sugimoto’s antics put the Irregulars in danger, Kobayashi must own up to his past to save his present.

Later, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft shows up with a case to retrieve a stolen drive full of sensitive and scandalous information (IE dick picks). The culprit is one Irene Adler, the wife of the creator of a cutting edge AI companion, who they are tasked with finding.

OUR TAKE

This week brings us a double helping of Kabukicho due to last week’s Thanksgiving break. We’ll be getting another one of these later on during the Christmas break, but for now, let’s look at what these two episodes have to offer us. The first one is another one of the character focus episodes that don’t necessarily contribute to the overarching plot (assuming you can say there is one). This time the spotlight is on Kobayashi, focusing more on his own past and getting a little more familiar with the crime side of Kabukico instead of having much in the way of an actual mystery. Considering Kobayashi is the least detective-like of the group, I guess this makes sense. And it’s not exactly a bad episode, just pretty unremarkable and indistinct, which is, unfortunately, a consistent feeling I’ve had about episodes across this whole series.

The OTHER episode this week feels notably more significant, if only for introducing two more mainstays of the Sherlock canon into this adaptation. Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft gives off a similar air to his Mark Gatiss portrayal in the BBC version, being more aligned with government forces and authority and being seen as a nuisance by his younger sibling, though ultimately knowing how to pull said sibling’s strings when needed. Irene, meanwhile, proves once again to be a cunning thief in any version, as well as an intellectual equal to Mr. Holmes, leading into a rather quick-witted chess match for her to get away with her current quarry. Both of these characters’ arrivals present a shift to a more focused tone for the series closer to what the first episode promised and what I had hoped it would have remained on. However, now that we’ve given just about everyone a focus episode, it should be about time to really dig in the proverbial heels in order to spend the remaining time on a plot worthy of fiction’s greatest detective.

Plus, it looks like Irene’s plot from this episode is not quite resolved as of the end, likely meaning that there’s at least one more week to give to it. With mayoral scandals and burgeoning artificial intelligence involved, this really could go in any direction, but the thought of that actually kind of surprises and intrigues me. And at the very least, I’ll only have to watch one episode a week for a little while, which would help me right now.